Xi calls on US, North Korea to implement Singapore agreements

BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the US and North Korea to implement their agreement reached at last week’s Singapore summit as he met Pyongyang’s leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday (Jun 19).

Kim “felt thanks for and highly praised China’s promotion of denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and its important role in protecting the peninsula’s peace and stability,” said official broadcaster CCTV in a report on Kim’s meeting with Xi in Beijing.

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Xi told Kim he “wants North Korea and the US to carry out the results of their leadership summit”, the report said.

In a joint statement with Trump following the Singapore summit, Kim pledged to “work toward the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula”.

Trump hailed this as a concession but critics said the stock phrase long used by Pyongyang stopped short of longstanding US demands for North Korea to give up its atomic arsenal in a “verifiable” and “irreversible” way.

Following the historic summit on Jun 12, China suggested the UN Security Council could consider easing the economic restrictions on its Cold War-era ally.